Je dis que rien ne m'épouvante
by la chiede il tuo cor
Summary: "Then he reads the list of past District 12 victors.  In seventy-four years, we have had exactly two.  Only one is still alive." -Hunger Games, p. 19.  Let the 34th Hunger Games begin.


I roll over in bed, unsure of the pressure in my chest. Did it wake me? Am I ill? That doesn't seem right… I shift until my gaze encounters the slightly-backlit clock that sits on Easthope's desk—a luxury that nobody in the Seam would be afforded, but one that I now took for granted. _3:45 a.m., 6/1/. _The day of the reaping. Oh.

I wonder how East can sleep at all. This is my last year of eligibility for the games and, though I never took out tesserae, my name will be entered seven times this year. Seven's not a lot, but it's still something. And then, there's the matter of Temur… but Temur is only twelve. There's no possible way that his name will be drawn from the thousands of little, lethal paper slips. I, on the other hand…

I run a hand across East's bare back. He doesn't wake, so I slide my feet onto the wood floor, taking care to ease my weight down gently as not to make any noise. Then, I pad across to the long windowsill where I've left my books. Before I went to bed I was working on a set of problems concerning light-speed motion. The entire concept seems fairly useless to me but I'm good with the theory, and I need to know this to be certified by the Capitol to teach even basic arithmetic in District 12. East has only been teaching for twelve years—as long as Temur's been alive. But it would be nice for him to have his load split. It's hard, teaching at District 12's only school. You lose two students every year.

I'm young to be married: young for a teacher, anyway. Most teachers wait until they're certified to be married—some say that your marriage certificate can hurt your chances of getting your teaching certificate. I personally find that suspicion ridiculous and easy to translate. You become certified at nineteen, once you're out of the reach of the Hunger Games. Nobody marries before then—why would you attach yourself to somebody who might leave you for their public death? But nobody can say that. Nobody can risk the ire of the Capitol.

And yet, I married Easthope Irvin when I was seventeen, as soon as it was legal. After all, East waited until he was nineteen to marry his first wife, and that did nothing to protect her from dying of pneumonia. Life is short in District 12. At least she gave him Temur first.

Temur… Temur, who represents goodness and kindness. Temur, who now represents six more long years of reaping day anxiety for me.

I clear the thoughts away and begin to manipulate the numbers on the page in front of me. They will keep me occupied, at least.

The sun comes streaming in the grimy windows around six, and East starts to stir. He lights the gas lamp by our bed, and I'm able to catch my reflection for a moment in the window. The lines formed by my furrowed brow are very deep, and I need to press my index finger against them to force them to release. "Raina… Come back to bed?" East is half-way across the room, so I know that his request is not a request at all, rather an acknowledgement that I've been awake for a while.

"Do you want breakfast? Could be a long day…"

He catches my shoulder as I get up from the windowsill. Good thing, too; my right leg's been tucked under me for hours and almost gives way when I try to put weight on it. He helps me to sit again. "No. Let Temur sleep a bit more. I don't want him to have too many hours to worry. What are you working on?"

I show him my problem set. He doesn't look too closely; he knows that I've done everything right. If I'd been born in the Capitol, my set of abilities would qualify me to train the educational examiners and bring in a yearly salary that could feed the entire Seam decently. Being born in District 12, however, means that I'll spend my life teaching ten-year-olds to multiply fractions. I don't mind, though. Sometimes, it's not the subject matter that's rewarding. Math has already gotten me out of the Seam. I can't ask much more from it.

If East hadn't been there to identify what I could do as prodigious, though, I might have starved to death by now. I owe him, not math. It was East that told me at age eight—just after the death of his first wife—that being able to multiply four-digit numbers instantaneously without writing anything down was abnormal. It was East that trained me. It was East that became my best friend. It was East that finally, after training me for nine years, took the social risk and married me, a girl from the Seam, thirteen years younger than himself.

He's the best of my life.

We spend a few hours in silence, grading papers from the school. The work is simple but copious, and we purposefully work slowly. Around ten, I hear light footsteps from downstairs: Temur must be awake. I put my papers aside just as he enters the room. He looks nervous.

East smiles and holds out his arms to put Temur at ease, but I can't quite keep the fretfulness off of my face. Even though Temur's only six years my junior, he's still my charge. Not really my son, but close enough. East and I have only been romantically involved for two years, but I've been Temur's partial caretaker for as long as he can remember. I take care of him. I put him first. I love him. If that doesn't make him my son, I don't know what does.

I don't want his name in the reaping.

"Let's get ready, okay? The sooner this is over, the better," Temur's saying, and I hate the grim tone that's already taken hold of his voice.

"Yeah," I hear myself say. "I'll make something to eat while you bathe… and we'll put on our nice clothing. I'll lay something out for you."

East follows Temur from the room to draw his bath, stopping to give my hand a reassuring squeeze before he goes. He loves me, but would choose Temur over me in a second. That's the way it should be. I like it. It gives me some stability.

I climb down the rickety stairs and enter the kitchen of our house, where Temur sleeps. Our house has two rooms and a little washing closet at the top of the stairs. It's small—nicer than anything in the Seam, and nowhere near as nice as the merchant's homes. It's comforting. I like being in the middle of a demographic. There's security in representing the median.

I find a little package of corn in our cabinet, and decide to boil it and serve it with some of our precious salted oil. It's a scary day, so why not indulge a little? I also have a hunk of wild turkey that I bought in the Hob, and it'll go bad any day now. This is irregular—a feast—but there's no reason to pretend that reaping day is a regular day.

I put the corn in a pot and set the oil to simmer in a saucepan. The turkey could be served cold, but it would be more comforting to Temur (and, why lie, to me as well) warmed up, so I toss it in with the corn before crossing the room to Temur's clothing crate and trying to find the shirt that has the least amount of coal dust covering it.

It's hopeless. The dust comes through the cracks in the walls, the doors, the windows… it layers itself over everything, so I settle for Temur's darkest button-down shirt and a pair of his least-worn leather pants. I eye the ensemble and decide that it actually looks rather nice.

I trundle up the stairs again and hang the outfit on a peg outside of the washroom. I can hear Temur and East splashing water on each other through the door. It sounds like Temur's morale has improved somewhat. Good.

I dish our turkey-and-corn meal onto three plates just as my men make it downstairs. Temur looks neat and angelic. Perfect. "We drew another bath for you," East says as he sits down. I give him a grateful smile and head up to wash quickly while my food cools.

The second I'm alone, though, my anxiety returns. It's hard to know that your name might come out of that reaping ball. It's harder to know that in a few years, Temur will have as many entries as I do now. I try to blank out my mind as I strip and bathe myself. I can't bring myself to do anything really nice with my hair, so I put it in a ponytail when I've finished. At least it's clean. I then drop myself into the gray dress that I traded for in the Hob—the dress that I wore to take my first round of oral qualifying examinations for advanced study a year ago. It's really the nicest thing that I have. The material is soft and shimmers when I move. I love it.

The morning is mostly gone by the time I make it downstairs and shovel as much food as possible down my throat. I can't seem to swallow correctly and my mouth is dry. East's agitation is nearly as bad as mine, though we both know that there's little reason for us to be afraid. East teaches a boy whose name is in that reaping ball fifty-six times this year.

Then again, maybe East has more reason for agitation than I do. Both of our district's tributes will be his students. I know that it's hard on him. When Temur bends over to lace his boots, I sneak a kiss with East and we share a miserable look. This is why I'm so determined to get certified as quickly as possible. I have to help him bear this terrible, terrible burden. "I understand," I whisper. He meets my eyes and I know he knows how much I love him, and I know he loves me the same way.

The clock says 12:59. Biting my lip, I pull my leather ankle-high boots over my socks and tug on the laces until they look even. I know that I'm wasting time, and so does East. Temur's massaging his temples, and I feel terrible that there's nothing I can do for him right now. The moment that the blinking digits flash to 1:00, I straighten up. There's no more waiting now. Silently, East takes my left hand and Temur's right, and we leave the house.

We've reached the square and checked in by 1:45. Temur and I hug East before separating off, hand in hand, to the roped-off section for twelve through eighteen-year-olds. "You're really in no danger," I mummer to him as he finds an empty seat in the twelve-year-old section, right in front. "You'll be just fine." He nods, a hint of a smile on his lips, but as I leave him I can see that he's a little ashen. I push my way to the back rows of eighteen-year-olds, find a seat, and perch on the edge while craning around looking for East.

He's kept good track of me; I can see him some fifteen feet behind me, right against the rope. I can't manage a smile for him, so I simply jerk my head in acknowledgement. He closes his eyes and nods. No matter what happens, this will be painful for him. A deep part of me wants to cry for him, but instead a faint flush of anger creeps up my neck. This isn't fair. These are the 35th annual Hunger Games; the original rebels are all dead anyway, and their children are out of the games' age range by now. This isn't fair. District 12 has never even had a victor.

A loud squeal breaks the air, and I fly around in my seat to face front. The official platform at which all of the audience seats are pointed has been mounted in the time that East and I had our wordless conversation, and our decrepit microphone is protesting its arousal from its year-long rest. The mayor reads his annual story—the history of Panem, the glory of the Capitol… the institution and rules of the Hunger Games. His words do nothing to divest me of my angry flush. I'm sure East can see and interpret it by now; I feel as though I'm glowing.

The mayor then introduces District 12's escort, Rosalie Trinket. Rosalie sounds positively manic as she recites her now terrifying annual "Happy Hunger Games! And may the odds be _ever_ in your favor!" She spends some useless time talking about how very honored she is to be here before us (_us_? We haven't had a victor in 34 years) and then crosses to one of the glass reaping balls. "Ladies first!" My entire body tenses. She fishes around the ball, grasps a name, and carries it back to the podium. My pulse is pounding in my head. _Not me. Not me. Not when I've just won my life with East. Not now, now that I have something that gives me purpose and makes me happy. Not me._

She clears her throat. "Raina Irvin!"

My head snaps backward to look at East. He looks back at me evenly, expressionless. And then he sways on his feet. My death sentence has been read. I am going to die.

I hold eye contact with East as I rise slowly to my feet, also swaying. Not shaking, just a little unsteady. I'm going to be dead. After today, I am never going to see East or Temur again. Tears threaten, but I'm too numb to actually shed them. The phrase "shockingly un-athletic" floats to the front of my mind—that's what I was called in the physical education portion of the exemption examination I had to take to qualify for the advanced study exam (oh, the things that the Capitol thinks up). I'm the same height as Temur, and can't tip a scale at eighty pounds soaking wet. I'm likely to be smarter than anybody else in that arena (in the _arena_!) but I'm not especially brave or resourceful. I'm weak. I spook easily.

I'm going to die.

I will my feet to move—left, right, left, right—and climb up onto the platform next to Rosalie. She asks for applause for me. There's some coughing and scattered shuffling in response. Nobody agrees with the reaping. Nobody ever claps for a tribute headed to slaughter.

And then Rosalie's approaching the second glass reaping ball, the one for the boys. I don't bother watching her; nothing here matters anymore. I find East's face. His eyes are red. It's not fair. He's already been widowed once. He only survived for Temur the first time. How much pain can be inflicted on one person? To his credit, he doesn't look away from me for even a second. I memorize his face as it is in this moment. I'll need it. There's another squeal from the microphone, but I don't let it distract me. My eyes stay on East and his on mine.

"…Temur Irvin!"

A scream breaks through my numbness. _Was that me? I think I screamed._ No. This is not a statistical possibility. My sanity's breaking down. This is a hallucination.

Or so I think until I see Temur rise from his seat and East collapse to the ground.


End file.
